Scan barcode
inked_in_pages's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
I loved this story so much. I think that Jesse Andrews does a wonderful job of writing directly from the brain of a high school boy who doesn't quite fit in while making the reader laugh, cringe and maybe even shed a few tears. Teenagers are not often faced with the mortality of their peers and the reactions that come when this happens are not always as expected...Greg's is definitely not. I loved the hilarious dynamics between Earl and Greg. I loved the style of writing as if it's a diary directly from Greg.
Graphic: Death and Chronic illness
rafacolog's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
1.0
Moderate: Drug use, Cancer, and Death
sunnysab's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Death and Cancer
butlerebecca's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Sexism, Cancer, Death, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Sexual content and Violence
pacifickat's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Not sure this book would be published now with certain language and stereotypes being present in the storytelling, but to me it came off as believably 'of a time' and true to what teenage boys might have said and thought circa 2012.
Also, concerning this book being a target for school and library bans, I recommend reading this article explaining the offending passages as well as a defense by the author regarding their inclusion in the story:
https://deadline.com/2023/07/jesse-andrews-me-and-earl-and-the-dying-girl-book-ban-florida-1235440379/
*UPDATE:* I finally have more to say about this book and why I liked it a lot more than I probably should have. This is a book about art and the human experience as told (messily) by a teenage boy with a foul mouth and a lot of (relatable) awkward internal monologuing. I was surprised how poignantly it capture the unbridgeable gap between artistic expression (human expression, really) and reality can be, and the frustration and existential pain this causes the main character as he attempts to understand and relate to his own interior landscape and the truth of what is happening to Rachel. The impossibility of it is profound in the end. Greg is also more vulnerable than he seems, and by paying attention to what he's NOT saying, between the jokes and meandering storytelling, one can learn a lot. In the end, art has limits as to what it can achieve, and is almost always more about the person who made it than anything else. It is, in essence, as narcissistic and self-involved as the teenager narrating this story.
1. "[We had made a film about a thing, death, that we knew nothing about. Maybe Earl sort of knew something, but I knew nothing about it. Plus we had made a film about a girl who we really hadn't gotten to know. Actually, we hadn't made the film about her at all. She was just dying, there, and we had gone and made a film about ourselves. We had taken this girl and used her really to make a film about ourselves, and it just seemed so stupid and wrong that I couldn't stop crying. Rachel the Film is not at all about Rachel. It's about how little we know about Rachel. We were so ridiculously arrogant to try to make a film about her."
2. "[...] I hated myself for this, I was realizing how to make the movie I should have made, that it had to be something that stored as much of Rachel as possible, that ideally we would have had a camera on her for her whole life, and one inside her head, and it made me so bitter and fucking angry that this was impossible, and she was just going to be lost."
3. "It's not a good film. OK? Actually, it sucks. Because [...] we had pretty good intentions, but that doesn't mean we made a good film. OK? Because it's not about her at all. It's just this embarrassing thing that shows that we don't eve understand anything about her. [...] Just because something is weird and hard to understand doesn't mean it's creative. That's - that's the whole problem. If you want to pretend like something is good, even when it's not, that's when you use stupid words like 'creative'. Our classmates hated it. [...] If it was good, they would have liked it. They would have understood it. And if it was good, maybe it would have helped."
Is this book perfect? No. Is it OK to not create clear meaning and purpose out of what looks and feels like chaotic nonsense? Yes. Grappling with nonbeing while being a living, breathing, conscious person can feel baffling. The actual experience can ultimately be impossible to express, to actually capture, hold, and share. The beauty of this book is that it admits to that truth, that in trying to say something meaningful, we end up saying nothing sensical at all. And, paradoxically (impossibly, frustratingly, unintentionally?) perhaps the very opposite is sometimes true as well.
Graphic: Body shaming, Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Sexual content, Drug use, and Racial slurs
Minor: Misogyny, Homophobia, and Fatphobia
heatherchrisman's review
2.75
Graphic: Cancer and Death
emmysforeverbooked's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
All in all, if you can look past inappropriate jokes that were accepted at the time (i.e. one of the main characters being stereotyped, lots of sexual innuendos, and a biphobic comment or two), this book could be fun for someone in their early teens. But for a 20 year old who reads books that are much more advanced than this, it just didn't hit for me.
Graphic: Cancer, Terminal illness, and Cursing
Moderate: Racism and Death
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, and Medical content
kshertz's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Minor: Death, Child death, and Chronic illness
andmingmingtoo's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Moderate: Cancer and Death
redsunnbby's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Moderate: Cancer and Death